


keep insisting, I'll stop resisting

by SeeTheVision



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Halloween, M/M, Mark Lee (NCT) is Whipped, Strangers to Lovers, johnny and donghyuck are brothers, johnny is...hot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:27:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26885095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeeTheVision/pseuds/SeeTheVision
Summary: “Mark, this is my brother Johnny. Just ignore him if he tries to talk to you, that’s what I always do.” Donghyuck deftly dodges the elbow aimed at his side. “And Johnny, this is my roommate Mark. I like him, so please try not to scare him off.”Johnny’s smirk widens. “Is that a challenge?”Mark is well and truly screwed, isn’t he?
Relationships: Mark Lee/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 31
Kudos: 333
Collections: Challenge #2 — tricks; treats; and terrors





	keep insisting, I'll stop resisting

**Author's Note:**

> (title is from pulled from the addams family!)

All things considered, Mark hit the roommate jackpot with Donghyuck. He keeps his stuff on his side of the room, does his share of the chores, and even knows how to cook, which saves Mark from the unfortunate fate of dying from instant noodle overdose. They share a lot of the same interests, making conversation easy. In fact, after over a month of living together in a tiny apartment adjacent to the university, Mark thinks they’re well on the way to being best friends.

He’s reconsidering this, however, as Donghyuck is taking forever to reply to Mark’s panicked text:  _ dude where are you and why is there a hot buff dude on your bed?? _

Mark risks another glance toward the bedroom. The hot buff dude in question is clearly visible through the open door, headphones in and eyes trained on his phone. He’d barely acknowledged Mark, returning from an afternoon lecture to find his roommate’s bed occupied by some who is most definitely  _ not  _ his roommate. Perched at the kitchen counter rather than entering the bedroom with the stranger, Mark pretends to be just as unbothered.

Finally,  _ finally,  _ Mark’s phone buzzes with a response from Donghyuck:  _ ew mark! thats my brother johnny, remember i told you he was coming over today?? _

Vaguely, Mark remembers Donghyuck mentioning something like that, but he was expecting someone vaguely Donghyuck-like: small, friendly, somewhat aggravating. Not someone several inches taller than him, with biceps that ripple as he tucks one arm behind his head—

His phone lights up with another text, as though Donghyuck can sense the way Mark’s throat has suddenly gone dry.

_ please dont start thirsting over my brother you creep _

He doesn’t bother to reply to that request—hey, why make promises he can’t keep?  _ where are you??  _ He asks again instead.

_ omw class ran long _

By the time Donghyuck arrives ten minutes later, Mark’s ready to throw himself from the window. The silence in the apartment is stifling—to him, at least, although Johnny seems perfectly at ease.  _ Poor, panicked baby gay,  _ a voice that sounds suspiciously like Ten whispers in his head.  _ Shut up!  _ He tells it. So what if he only realized he liked boys a few months ago? So what if this Johnny dude is hot enough that Mark feels himself starting to melt into his shoes? He’s a 21-year-old absolutely fully capable man, and he refuses to be intimidated by—

“Hyuck!” Johnny finally speaks, leaping from the bed and tugging Donghyuck into a bear hug that lifts him off the ground. Just that one word in Johnny’s deep voice sends every coherent thought flying from Mark’s head. 

“Sorry I wasn’t here when you arrived,” says Donghyuck, completely unfazed by being snatched up and swung around like a rag doll.

(Mark wonders if Johnny could pick  _ him  _ up so easily.)

“S’okay,” grins Johnny, setting Donghyuck back on his feet and ruffling his hair. “You gonna introduce me to your friend?” For the first time, he turns his eyes on Mark, who feels like a specimen under a microscope as Johnny looks him up and down with a slight smirk.

“Mark, this is my brother Johnny. Just ignore him if he tries to talk to you, that’s what I always do.” He deftly dodges the elbow aimed at his side. “And Johnny, this is my roommate Mark. I like him, so please try not to scare him off.”

Johnny’s smirk widens. “Is that a challenge?”

Donghyuck gives Mark an exasperated look, clearly meant to say,  _ he’s the absolute worst. _

Mark isn’t convinced.

“Nice to meet you,” he ventures, relieved when his voice doesn’t crack.

Smile softening from teasing to genuine, Johnny meets his eyes. “You too.”

Mark is well and truly screwed, isn’t he?

  
  
  


Johnny becomes a staple in their apartment over the next few weeks. At least three days a week find him propped against Donghyuck’s bed or hunched over the desk with his laptop.

“My roommate recently got a girlfriend,” he explains when Mark works up the courage to ask why. Mark makes a face in sympathy, earning a laugh from Johnny. “Yeah, exactly. I guess I could go to the library, but the company’s better here.” He shoots Mark a lopsided smile that makes Mark’s stomach drop into his toes.

“Loser,” Donghyuck remarks, launching his pillow at Johnny’s face. 

“Correction,” says Johnny, batting the pillow away with ease and childishly sticking his tongue out at his brother, “ _ Mark’s  _ company is better.”

Mark ducks his head to hide his flaming cheeks, feeling dumb for letting a teasing jab fluster him.

True to his word, though, Johnny continues to show up even when Donghyuck spends more and more time on campus( _ “Theatre rehearsals,” _ he’d explained, _ “I’ll be gone a lot in October” _ )

On one such afternoon, Johnny rolls onto his stomach, knocking one of Donghyuck’s plushies to the floor in the process, and props his chin in his palms. “Hey, Mark?”

“Hm?” Mark mumbles, not taking his eyes from the half-typed essay on his laptop screen.

“What are you doing on Halloween?”

That makes Mark look up, blinking owlishly at Johnny through his round glasses. “Uh, I’m not sure.” He usually spends the night watching corny horror movies with Ten and Jungwoo, but that would sound lame, right? “Why?”

“A couple of friends and I are throwing a party,” Johnny replies with a nonchalant half-shrug. “Wanna come?”

“Oh.” His mind takes a few seconds to catch up. “OH, I mean— yeah, that— that sounds fun.”

“Sweet,” Johnny grins. “I’ll send you the details. Feel free to bring a couple friends if you want.”

“Okay,” Mark mumbles, turning his attention back to his laptop.

  
  
  
  


“You’re so screwed,” cackles Ten, leisurely scanning the aisles of the pop-up Halloween store while Mark searches, with mounting despair, for a suitable costume.

“I know,” Mark groans, tossing aside a rainbow clown wig.

“Hey, I think this is gonna be great,” says Jungwoo encouragingly, placing a glittery flower crown atop his blonde hair and examining his reflection in his phone. “Mark got invited to a party by a hot guy! Good for him!”

“And ruined our perfectly good Halloween tradition,” Ten points out.

“Oh come on,” Jungwoo sets a witch hat on Ten’s head, “you can’t tell me you aren’t at least a  _ little  _ excited to have actual plans this year. Dressing up! Being spooky!”

“Most of these costumes aren’t even scary,” Ten points out.

“I beg to differ,” retorts Jungwoo, plucking a giant banana costume from the shelf and giggling when Ten cringes.

“Staying home and watching movies is sounding pretty good right now,” Mark admits, gazing in despair at a costume labeled  _ Sexy Hotdog. _

“Here, what about this?” Jungwoo tosses a plastic-wrapped lump of red and blue fabric toward him.

“Huh. Yeah, that could work.”

  
  
  


The address Johnny sent him leads them to a huge house in a community of identical huge houses, all nestled into their lots like eggs in an Easter basket. The half-hearted skeleton and gravestone decorations in the perfect lawns are almost laughable against the clean-cut neighborhood.

“Welcome to suburbian hell,” mumbles Ten. “Which house is it?”

“Probably the one with the smoke machine and the drunk college students in the yard,” suggests Jungwoo.

Although it’s barely 9:30, the party is already in full swing. As the three of them head up the walk, the door bursts open and a group of girls in what appears to be skeleton-themed lingerie stumble out in a fit of giggles. Mark, Ten, and Jungwoo slip in the open door, careful to give the drunk girls a wide berth.

He barely has time to take in the dim colored lights and fake cobwebs on the walls before someone shouts his name. 

“Mark!” Donghyuck appears, his hair full of glitter and an artfully rendered skull design swirling across his face. “Nice costume, I love Spiderman! I didn’t know you were coming!”

“Uh, yeah,” says Mark, feeling stupid. Of course Donghyuck would be here. “Johnny invited me last week.”

“Huh. Didn’t mention that to me. Anyway, who are your friends?”

Mark quickly introduces Jungwoo, radiant in his flower crown and shimmering fairy wings, and Ten, looking more intimidating than usual with heavy eyeliner and hollowed-out cheeks.

“Mark never brings anyone over to the apartment,” says Donghyuck, “I was beginning to think he really had no friends.”

Ten snickers and Mark has a feeling his roommate is going to bond with his friends on the basis of making fun of him. “Okaaay,” he says, trying to usher them further into the house, “can we go get drinks or something? Whose house is this, anyway?”

“Johnny’s friend Yuta,” answers Donghyuck, pointing down the hall. “Kitchen’s that way, see you around!”

“I like him,” grins Jungwoo, looking after Donghyuck with approval.

“Of course you do,” grumbles Mark, “you’re the same brand of evil.”

“So which one is Johnny?” wonders Ten, rising up on his tiptoes in an attempt to see over the crowd as they reach the kitchen.

“I haven’t seen him yet,” replies Mark, looking around more discreetly, “but I’m sure he’ll show up sooner or—”

“Looking for someone?”

Mark nearly leaps out of his itchy spandex costume as a hand settles on his shoulder. He looks up and suddenly wishes he actually had sticky webs to swing himself out of the situation, because Johnny’s smiling at him, and he’s got  _ fangs. _

“Oh damn,” hoots Ten gleefully, “Mark was right.”

“Hm?” Johnny casts a cursory glance over his friends before returning his attention to Mark and raising a(perfectly sculpted) eyebrow. He’s wearing dark red contacts and Mark is ready to pass out. Honestly, vampire is the most basic Halloween costume  _ ever,  _ so  _ why  _ does Johnny look like he invented the concept? “What have you been saying about me?”

“I said— uh, that you’re really tall.”

Johnny snorts, slipping his arm around Mark’s waist. “Great observational skills, Spiderman.”

“Uh. Thanks. Anyways, I should probably—” he looks around for Ten and Jungwoo, but they’ve melted into the crowd.  _ Traitors. _

“Should probably come dance with me?” What might have been an innocent smile is ruined by the sharp tips of his fake fangs glittering. Mark’s eyes rove, drinking him in like alcohol. Dark hair slicked back with a few strands falling messily over his forehead, a touch of dark shadow on his eyelids, a silky black shirt with several buttons undone—Mark snaps his gaze back up, swallowing hard and fighting back a blush.

“Okay,” he says, trying to match Johnny’s devious smirk, “let’s dance.”

The living room has more people and less light, with all the furniture pushed against the wall to make space and machine-made smoke making everything hazy. It’s too crowded to really dance, but that doesn’t stop anyone from trying.

It’s kind of stupid; the room smells of beer and sweat and fog machine, and the speakers are blaring some EDM remix of Spooky Scary Skeletons, but Johnny’s hands are on Mark’s hips and he’s looking at him in a way that makes Mark shiver. 

“Dude, stop looking at me like that,” Mark giggles, tentatively threading his arms around Johnny’s neck.

“Like what?” Johnny asks, heady gaze not faltering.

“Like you want to eat me, or something.”

Johnny’s lips quirk, revealing the tips of his fangs(god  _ damn,  _ that shouldn’t be so sexy). “Maybe I do.”

“Oh yeah?” He hasn’t had a sip of alcohol, but Mark feels brave, drunk on hope and the feeling of Johnny’s body pressed close to his. His tongue darts out to wet his parched lips and Johnny’s eyes follow the motion. “Go for it.”

Johnny doesn’t go straight for the lips as Mark expects; he first ducks his head and presses his mouth to the side of his neck.

“You’re really into this vampire thing, huh?” Mark huffs, clinging to his flippant tone even as his knees threaten to buckle from the sensation.

He can feel Johnny smile against his thundering pulse. “You’ve got a mole there,” Johnny mumbles against his skin, trailing his mouth lazily up Mark’s neck and across his jaw. “And here.” his plush lips find their way to Mark’s cheek, close to his mouth.

“Hey, Johnny?”

“Yeah?”

“If you don’t kiss me right now, I’m gonna lose my mind.”

The first press of Johnny’s lips against his is surprisingly gentle, just the ghost of a touch before he pulls back to look at Mark’s face. And, yeah, that’s romantic or whatever, but Mark’s been pining pathetically for weeks. With a frustrated huff, he threads his fingers into Johnny’s hair and tugs him back down.

Johnny seems to get the message, tightening his grip on Mark’s hips and nipping at his lower lip. It’s kind of awkward, navigating lips and tongues around the plastic fangs in Johnny’s mouth, but Mark doesn’t care. He’s kissing  _ Johnny.  _ Johnny is kissing him  _ back.  _

“This is the worst day of my life!” Donghyuck’s agonized wail forces them to pull apart, chests heaving against each other, impossible to tell where one heartbeat stops and the other begins. “I have to bleach my eyes. Oh my god, I’m going to have to bleach my eyes  _ every day!” _

Laughter bubbles in Mark’s chest, bursting free like a waterfall. Johnny joins in, shaking as he turns toward his brother, tucking Mark against his side with one arm.

“Every day sounds good to me. What do you think, Mark?”

“Sounds perfect.”

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/see_thevision)   
>  [instagram](https://www.instagram.com/riahsvision/)   
>  [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.qa/see_thevision)


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